A Message From A Republican Meteorologist On Climate Change

[MindMover]

Acknowledging Climate Change Doesn’t Make You A Liberal

I’m going to tell you something that my Republican friends are loath to admit out loud: climate change is real.

I am a moderate Republican, fiscally conservative; a fan of small government, accountability, self-empowerment, and sound science. I am not a climate scientist. I’m a meteorologist, and the weather maps I’m staring at are making me uncomfortable. No, you’re not imagining it: we’ve clicked into a new and almost foreign weather pattern. To complicate matters, I’m in a small, frustrated and endangered minority: a Republican deeply concerned about the environmental sacrifices some are asking us to make to keep our economy powered-up, long-term. It’s ironic.

The root of the word conservative is “conserve.” A staunch Republican, Teddy Roosevelt, set aside vast swaths of America for our National Parks System, the envy of the world. Another Republican, Richard Nixon, launched the EPA. Now some in my party believe the EPA and all those silly “global warming alarmists” are going to get in the way of drilling and mining our way to prosperity. Well, we have good reason to be alarmed.

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/03/29/454476/a-message-from-a-republican-meteorologist-on-climate-change/

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some of these charts are a little scary.....

[tabatha]

1. Thanks for that article.

[MindMover]

2. I think he is trying to say this is not some joke like some politicians are.....

saying.......this is the real thing and we better get serious and do something about it.....

[Gman]

3. The modern GOP is not conservative

the closest I can get is fascist.

[Voice for Peace]

4. thanks! good for sharing w/conservative relations

k/r

[Mariana]

5. I don't know that it will do much good.

I'll give it a shot, though. I can hear my dad now: "Moderate? That means liberal. This person's a RINO."

And that will be that.

[Voice for Peace]

6. it can help plant a seed for future bridges

bad metaphor, I know bridges don't grow from seeds.

or do they?

[caseymoz]

7. How can he stay a Republican.

He knows this:

Yet today there’s a very concerted, well-funded effort to spin climate science. Some companies, institutes and think tanks are cherry-picking data, planting dubious seeds of doubt, arming professional deniers, scientists-for-hire and skeptical bloggers with the ammunition necessary to keep climate confusion alive. It’s the “you can’t prove smoking cigarettes causes lung cancer!” argument, times 100, with many of the same players.

How can he see the conservative propaganda mill grinding, know that it's nothing unusual, that is, the same thing is true with cigarettes, yet remain a Republican?

Maybe he'll change his mind now that he's made himself a smear target.

[MrScorpio]

8. Well, outside of that climate change thing, he's still invested in fascistic authoritarian wingerism

He'll do what he's told...

[Festivito]

9. Well dressed fools are at least well dressed. /nt

[Johonny]

12. seems like a lot of people grow up believing in the Lincoln-Teddy Roosevelt party

I mean there was a time long ago when the Dems were the ultra rich and the Republicans the progressive party. It is really mind blowing that so many people think Roosevelt would get ahead in today's party.

[tanyev]

10. If you're that worried, then stop voting for Republicans, buddy.

[just1voice]

11. LOL, "A Republican Meteorologist"

A psychotic weather person? There's not much credibility to be had in that description.

[randome]

13. There will be many more like this as climate change becomes irrefutable.

I think many of them know this already but are in denial. Soon they won't even be able to cling to that.

[tex-wyo-dem]

14. I applaud him for coming out and saying this...

But there are a few problems:

1.) He's now made himself a target for the fascist propaganda machine.

2.) We should have been doing something about this long ago. Scientists have been warning us for decades...now that the results of climate change is slapping us across the face, it's probably too late to do anything to reverse course (slowing or halting further damage is something we must do NOW!)

3.) The rethugs (aka fascists) are ruled by probably the most strong vice in the human psyche...greed. The fascists will drill and mine and consume us into oblivion just to make a quick buck, and then wonder what happened when the Earth's ecosystems finally collapse and all hell breaks loose.